However – I am due to go back to work next week so the money should be rolling in in no time. I just need to rebuild my YNAB buffer or my emergency fund and then we’ll be back to the races as they say. I say “or my emergency fund” because I may just use my emergency fund to build back my buffer. I like the YNAB buffer. ALOT.

It’s allowed me to go through this period of not working and the household not receiving any income with ZERO stress whatsoever. Cannot recommend the program enough. Check it out.

But yes I need to do some saving before I can start paying off the mortgage full stop. It shouldn’t take too long.

Well – due to the holidays and Christmas overspending (but by much less than before) we were only able to pay $599.78 extra – less than the $700-800 extra minimum I’d love to pay every month to make it at least a 15 year loan.

Also – due to a family emergency I’ll need to stay home from work for most or all of January…. so no extra payment this month.

But thanks to YNAB this little break from work isn’t going to hurt at all. Who knew a little application could allow me to miss a month of work without breaking a sweat or worrying at all? Seriously – not stressed one bit. I can’t imagine that before YNAB. I’m a little bummed that I might have to rebuild my buffer – but that’s what a buffer is for.

All this without touching my emergency fund at all. Thanks YNAB! (<— that’a a referral link – if you use it we BOTH get $6)

This plan is a good $200 less per month than the Kaiser plan that we had before. Not sure how much less it’ll be than the COBRA bill we’ll probably get soon since my wife has now officially left her job.

But $870/month for a PPPO for a family of 5? And we can see any doctor we want? I’ll take that.

It would be a lot less if I qualified for subsidies… but alas…

Brave new world. The ACA has made it so that my wife can leave her job (that she hated) to stay home and raise the kids. She was only keeping the job because of the healthcare as I’m freelance… and now we can afford to buy it on the individual market with not much hassle. (now that the site is now working better)

I think this Obamacare thing is going to turn out to be a very good thing for all of us in the long room.

As you may already know… I adore YNAB. (<— That’s a referral link… use it and we BOTH get $6)

And I adore Google’s Chromebook – their cheap, fast, safe, and worry free computer that has become my main computer. The only time I EVER fire up my MacBook Pro is to run YNAB.

Until YNAB comes out with a web based or Chrome packaged app version, Chromebook users are out of luck… that is unless you own an Intel Chromebook such as the original Samsung Series 5, Series 500, Chromebox, or the Acer Chromebooks or the HP14. This hack will unfortunately not work on the ARM Chromebooks such as the Samsung Chromebook or the new AWESOME HP11 – which unfortunately are the more popular Chromebooks.

It involves a sort of hack and putting your Chromebook into developer mode. It will NOT void your warranty but it requires a little bit of work. And since it’s a Chromebook… it’ll only take 5 minutes to literally put everything back to normal if you decide not to do it anymore.

Woohoo! We managed to pay an extra $1,010.94 in October – even on a SINGLE INCOME. Many thanks to Mr. Money Moustache for inspiration to keep down my spending to make it possible.

This extra payment saved 2 more months off of the 30 year loan and $2,177.10 in interest. Each extra payment gives over a 100% return for the life of the loan. Not bad.

Next month we should be able to pay even more or the same.

Once the new year comes around we’ll probably have to pay less due to me having to buy health care again out of my own pocket… but I’m going to ask for a rate raise in my freelance work which should hopefully cover most of that. Wish me luck with that.

There’s a little clue in the above title why I haven’t posted in a while.

Well in September we managed to pay an extra $786.22 to our mortgage which is awesome.

This saved $2,265.64 in interest and brought our total time taken off of our 30 year mortgage to a FULL YEAR! We’re making progress people. Slowly but surely.

And yes we have a baby girl – which is just amazing. I still can’t believe I have a daughter. Her brothers are in love too.

Soon we’ll have to purchase insurance on the CA exchange as my wife is going to stay home with the baby. It’ll be $1,000ish if we stay with Kaiser which is much less than COBRA but still more than is coming out of my paycheck now.

But it’s only temporary until my wife decides to go back to work. Then we’ll be able to throw her entire paycheck at the mortgage. Crazy.

Unless something unexpected happens – we should be able to throw a full $1,000 at the mortgage this month.

Why $539.41? Well it’s $500 plus the max leftover in YNAB. I could have done more this month but we overspent by $1,402,82 in July due to various baby things and buying the car…. .but that’s why you have a buffer to roll with the punches in YNAB.

We’re on course to be on budget for August – if we do go over it’ll be around $200…. (new car seat) so I should have around $1000 extra to throw at the mortgage in September. Wish me luck.

But with the extra payment this month of $539.41 it brings the interest saved up to $9,448.99 (a $1,036.33 change) and the total months saved on the loan to 10 months. Almost 1 year less on this mortgage already!!

Big month. This is the first month that we’re living on just my salary. It’s a little questionable as to how long Health Care will be taken care of as my wife is a teacher so I’m not sure if/when they’re going to stop that for her maternity leave but we’ll handle that when we get there. Hopefully all will coast until we get to October 1st, 2013 when we can sign up on the Obamacare exchange (that would start 01/01/14)

We paid an extra $500 in principle this month. My current goal is to get this back up to the $700 to $750 range which will make it a 15 year loan again. Hopefully that will become the new base line.

We did get a $502 refund from the IRS – which will help next month’s extra payment. We’ll see if that is all that is put into it or there’s going to be more. Hopefully more.

Interest saved jumped $692.24 from $7,720.42 to $8,412.66. An instant 138% return on investment. My math has to be wrong there…. took $692.24/500? Did I do that wrong? Anyways…. percentage aside… I’ll take it.

If I pay at least $500 extra a month the 30 year loan becomes a 19 year loan. That has to come way down….

Future goals with a single income:

1. $750/month extra = payoff in 15 years

2. $1000/month extra = payoff in 13 years

3. $1500/month extra = payoff in 9 years!

And when my wife eventually does go back to work we’ll be able to put almost all her salary towards paying off the mortgage:

4. $4500/month extra = payoff in 5 years!!!

How’s that for motivation. One step at at time people – first step is back to $750 a month. Let’s see if I can do that next month.

The total cost with taxes, title, and license was just around $19,000. With the around $8,500 we got for our Civic that meant we wrote a whopping check for $10,000…all money that was saved since my post.

We really kicked but saving that money – basically my wife’s entire salary went towards saving for the downpayment of that car.

We still are going to use our Nissan Leaf for most of the driving as we can fit 3 car seats in there… but fitting 3 carseats in the Civic would have been near impossible. (The Leaf is a compact on the outside but a midsize based on the interior dimensions due to having more space due to no internal combustion parts).

It was really satisfying to pay in cash (well – a check) and leave the dealership with a new car (to us) that we own completely.

We also had to fill our a car loan application at 20% interest that would go through if our check didn’t clear… but of course it didn’t.

20%!!!!!!! Crazy.

Also – I think I’ll have around $700 to throw at the mortgage this month… but more on that when I actually make the payment.